Govt’s Gillman fix attracts construction bids
The State Government’s recent move to clear up its processes for dealing with unsolicited bids from business has already attracted four major construction proposals.
Following months of controversy over its decision to deal exclusively with one consortium over the sale of 400 hectares of Crown land at Gillman, the State Government developed a tighter and clearer process to accept so-called “unsolicited bids”.
Draft guidelines were released for consultation in October, and they have been finalised this week.
The new process puts the State Coordinator-General, Jim Hallion, in charge of receiving and assessing bids.
The final guidelines add new financial thresholds under which the guidelines kick in. The new processes will be used for all unsolicited proposals with a construction value of $3 million or more, with the threshold set at $1 million for non-infrastructure related proposals.
The final guidelines also differ from the draft in that they bring Renewal SA into the process for proposals that involve government land.
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The agency, whose role in the Gillman project was at the heart of the controversy, wasn’t mentioned in the draft guidelines.
Weatherill said today that Hallion had already received unsolicited proposals following the release of the draft just over a month ago.
The Government wouldn’t provide details, but confirmed that all the bids were for infrastructure/construction proposals, and are valued in the multi-millions.
Weatherill said consultation on the guidelines had resulted in the new financial thresholds, and he confirmed that the Coordinator-General’s role would be extended beyond this year following positive feedback from industry.
Industry had come forward with fresh project ideas, he indicated, because the guidelines had eased their fears of a Gillman-style backlash.
“The Government wants to work with the private sector to identify innovative approaches that will promote the economic development of the State,” he said.
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“Both these initiatives show we are open to business and we want people to come forward with their ideas – but we will also subject it to the highest standards of probity.
“There have been many investors and private sector business people who, after seeing what happened with the Gillman proposal, would now be hesitant to come to Government with their ideas.
“These guidelines formalise the Government’s framework for unsolicited proposals to achieve the certainty and transparency that both proponents and the community need.”
The Property Council welcomed the new guidelines.
SA executive director Daniel Gannon said the guidelines would “deliver confidence to the private sector and importantly to the South Australian community”.
“What this initiative seeks to achieve is certainty to industry as to how unsolicited proposals will be transparently assessed,” he said.
“Not only that, but the guidelines will bring our state up to speed with other jurisdictions around Australia.
“This framework is about facilitating private sector engagement with the State Government at a time when we need to drive economic growth.”
The Gillman proposal, which is still being negotiated by the Government and Adelaide Capital Partners, came under fire both from within the board of Renewal SA, which initially called for an open tender process, and from rival businesses who wanted to bid for the potentially valuable land.
The new guidelines make it clear that the Government default position is to request proposals via tender processes.
However, the Government can see value in dealing exclusively with one proponent, as long as certain tests are met, such as the proposal’s uniqueness, the lack of competing ideas, value for money and others.
A multi-agency steering committee, led by Hallion, will consider the proposals which will then be put through a multi-step process.
The Government confirmed that this steering committee had already met to consider the four proposals which had been pitched since the draft guidelines were released in October.
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